The present invention generally relates to a textile fabric and, more particularly, to a highly sweat-absorbent textile fabric suited as a material for jackets, raincoats, sweatshirts, warm-up suits, snowsuits, skisuits, parkas, anoraks, sweaters, and the like outerwears.
Hitherto, an outerwear or outer garment, particularly, a sportwear, is made out of a textile fabric excellent in thermal insulation or a two-ply textile fabric having inner and outer linings with or without a fiberfill, such as down or cotton, sandwiched between the inner and outer linings.
Since the conventional textile fabric for the outerwears referred to above is required to have a high thermal insulation, a high windbreak performance and/or a high water repellency, the gas permeability thereof is more or less sacrificed. For example, when one wears a certain outerwear over the underwear, the sweat excreted from the body of the wearer can hardly be exhaled through the outerwear and, when cooled, may gather into minute drops of moisture which subsequently wet the underwear and/or form upon the inner surface of the textile fabric. Thus, the conventional textile fabric is likely to result in the substantial enclosure of moisture inside the shell of the outerwear. When the moisture inside the shell of the outerwear is saturated, the sweat excreted from the body of the wearer immediately into minute drops of moisture, or the moisture readily condenses into minute drops of liquid by the effect of the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside of the outerwear. If this happens, the body of the wearer is wetted to such an extent as to cause the wearer to feel uncomfortable to continue wearing it.
Furthermore, the conventional sportwear is typically made out of a textile fabric having a cotton inner lining which, when held in contact with the body skin of the wearer, exhibits a high sweat absorbency. Since the use of the cotton inner lining has been found disadvantageous in that it tends to lose its once-designed shape so readily as to reduce the aesthetic feature of the sportwear, polyester has come to be used as a material for the inner lining or a material for the sportwear as a whole. Considering the fact that the sportwear, particularly the warm-up suit, is oftentimes worn on during sport activity, the polyester sportwear fails to exhibit a moisture absorbency, particularly a sweat absorbency, with the sweat consequently gathering upon the body of the wearer in the form of minute drops of moisture, and accordingly, it cannot give a comfortable feeling to the wearer for a continued period of time.
This equally applies even to the conventional sportwear made out of a blended textile fabric of 50% polyester and 50% cotton or a textile fabric of 100% cotton, because the amount of cotton used for facilitating sweat absorption is relatively small.